The play of the "Rescue of the Princess Winsome" had become a real thing to her, that she felt that it must have happened; that Malcolm really was Lloyd's true knight, and that when they were alone together they talked like the people in books.
She was disappointed when the rehearsal was over because the conversation she had imagined did not take place.
The coachman's carpenter-work was not of the steadiest, and Lloyd lay laughing on the shaky bier because she could not rise without fear of upsetting it.
"Help me up, you ancient mariner," she ordered, and when Malcolm, instead of springing forward in courtly fashion to her assistance as Sir Feal should have done, playfully held out his pole for her to pull herself up by, Mary felt that something was wrong.

A playful manner was not seemly on the part of a Sir Feal.

It would have been natural enough for Phil or Rob to do teasing things, but she resented it when there seemed a lack of deference on Malcolm's part toward the Princess.
After they had gone back to the porch, Mary sat on the grass a long time, reading the part of the poem relating to the tableau.

She and Holland had committed to memory several pages of the "Idylls of the King," and had often run races repeating them, to see which could finish first.

Now Mary found that she still remembered the entire page that Miss Allison had read.